Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Chinese Regional Agricultural Productivity: 1994–2005, Haizhi Tong, Lilyan E. Fulginiti, Juan P. Sesmero

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Agricultural productivity growth in Chinese provinces during the 1994-2005 period is examined using two alternative approaches: a parametric stochastic frontier and a non-parametric Malmquist index. These models are suitable to the Chinese situation due to the existence of procurement prices, quotas, and other interventions that have distorted prices. Results show that there is high but declining productivity growth rates in the mid 1990’s with productivity growth decreasing in the late 1990’s but with a reversal of the trend around 1998 when growth rates start accelerating. A stochastic frontier translog production function is estimated to obtain an alternative measure of total …

Entrepreneurial Leadership And Teamwork: The Key To Innovation In The 21st Century, Connie I. Reimers-Hild, Susan N. Williams

Kimmel Education and Research Center: Presentations and White Papers

Entrepreneurial leadership and continuous innovation are vital components of 21st century communities and organizations. Entrepreneurial leaders must realize the importance of environmental, social and global issues while creating an atmosphere of innovation designed to help followers become more entrepreneurial themselves.

Entrepreneurial individuals and teams have the ability to recognize and capitalize on opportunities, innovate, take risks, adapt to rapid change and marshal resources to achieve their goals. When individuals come together as an effective team, they can produce a synergy to meet the demands of a rapidly changing and competitive work environment. Therefore, entrepreneurial leaders must develop entrepreneurial individuals and …

Self-Promotion Saturday, Ken Pomeranz

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

“Self-promotion Saturday?” My mother would be appalled, but times (and media cultures) change, and I do have a few things that might be of interest to China Beat readers. In addition to co-editing China in 2008 (which regular visitors to this site might possibly have heard of), I have another co-edited volume that came out this spring, and another book I edited has just come this summer.

The spring volume is The Environment and World History, 1500-2000 (UC Press), co-edited with Edmund Burke III; it includes both regional essays (I did the one on China), and topical ones (on energy …

Kabul Times (Oct - Dec, 1963)

Digitized Afghanistan Materials in English from the Arthur Paul Afghanistan Collection

Kabul Times, October to December, 1963

Reading Round-Up

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

To start, a few pieces not related to the events in Xinjiang:

1. “Edge of the American West,” a history/philosophy academic group blog, ran a piece today by David Silbey titled, “Death Preparatory to Resurrection [Boxers, July 13-16, 1900]” that reflects on Western media coverage during that time of the supposed massacre of foreigners in Beijing (later proven to be false):

This was the week that the westerners besieged in the embassies in Beijing died. They would be reborn again quite quickly, but for several days in the middle of July the world was firmly convinced that they had all …

Margin Requirement Impacts On Live Cattle Futures Hedges, Yi Liu, Darrell R. Mark

Cornhusker Economics

All buyers and sellers of futures contracts have to post margin money through their brokers to act as a performance bond. This margin money financially secures their position and protects the party on the opposite side of the transaction from default. Generally, the margin requirement for a futures contract is established at a level close to the maximum amount that any short or long trader could lose in any one-day trading period because each day the account is “marked-to-the-market” and the daily gain or loss is reflected in the account balance at the end of the day. The maximum amount …

The Xinjiang Riots: Tried Paradigms, Fresh Tensions, James Leibold

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The mainstream media, both Western and Chinese, seem to be struggling to make sense of the deadly riots that broke out in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi last week. Well-worn explanations on both sides have largely failed to grasp the complexities behind this new, unprecedented wave of mass communal violence in China. Not since the dying days of the Manchu Qing empire has China witnessed this sort of spontaneous ethnically-based violence.

With initial headlines like “Chinese riot police, Muslims clash in northwestern city,” “China in deadly crackdown after Uighurs go on the rampage,” and “Uighurs cling to life in People’s …

Kabul Times (Jul - Sep, 1963)

Digitized Afghanistan Materials in English from the Arthur Paul Afghanistan Collection

Kabul Times, July - Sepember, 1963

Kabul Times (Apr - Jun, 1963)

Digitized Afghanistan Materials in English from the Arthur Paul Afghanistan Collection

Kabul Time, April - June, 1963

Kabul Times (Jan - Mar, 1963)

Digitized Afghanistan Materials in English from the Arthur Paul Afghanistan Collection

Kabul Times (Jan 1 - Mar 31, 1963)

Institutional Repositories, Paul Royster

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Presentations

Summary of collection strategies at UNL:
Be inclusive, not exclusive
Be proactive, even aggressively so
Think of the global audience
Everything open access
Everything full-text
Ample metadata—especially abstracts
Utilize work-study students
Link back to your site
Give depositors feedback — publishers don't
Measure, measure, measure, . . .

The "document" is a PDF version of the PowerPoint slides plus the spoken text; the PowerPoint file itself is attached (below) as an additional file.

Mozilla Firefox users: There is a known bug in the Firefox PDF plug-in (which opens PDFs within the browser window) that will crash if a file exceeds …

Reading Round-Up

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Little bits and pieces from around the web…

1. In case you missed it, David Brooks wrote a column about China in The New York Times last week. In it, he details two perspectives on China’s future presented at the Aspen Ideas Festival. On the one hand,

The agent provocateur was Niall Ferguson of Harvard. China and the U.S., he argued, used to have a symbiotic relationship and formed a tightly integrated unit that he calls Chimerica… During the first few years of the 21st century, Chimerica worked great. This unit accounted for about a quarter of the world’s G.D.P. …

Kabul Times (Aug - Dec 1962), Afghanistan

Digitized Afghanistan Materials in English from the Arthur Paul Afghanistan Collection

Kabul Times from August 1 thru December 31, 1962

Though The Candles Flicker Red, Jonathan Tel

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Jonathan Tel’s collection of stories, The Beijing of Possibilities, was released last month. China Beat ran an earlier selection, “Year of the Gorilla,” in March 2009. Tel’s previous publications include Arafat’s Elephant and Freud’s Alphabet. You can learn more about The Beijing of Possibilities at the website of Other Press.

Blame it on the Olympics. The authorities are trying to clean up the city, give it a new face. Let’s fool tourists and athletes into thinking it’s always been like this. Street performers of all kinds, they’re swept out of sight. Not that they vanish, they relocate to the outskirts, …

Kabul Times (Apr - Jul, 1962), Afghanistan

Digitized Afghanistan Materials in English from the Arthur Paul Afghanistan Collection

Kabul Times, daily English newspaper covers the period from April 24 thru July 31, 1962

Reports From The West

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Details are still emerging about the unrest in western China, but there are already some fabulous round-ups of media coverage of the events, such as this one at Shanghaiist and this one at EastSouthWestNorth. Here is a short video report from Al Jazeera:

Twitter is proving to once again be an important tracker for journalists and others. We recommend keeping track of these feeds if you’d like to keep up on what is happening (as well as recommendations for further reading as it is posted online):Michael Anti (journalist, Nieman Fellow); Louisa Lim (NPR reporter); Melissa K. Chan (Al Jazeera reporter). …

Community Wildfire Protection Plans: Reducing Wildfire Hazards In The Wildland Urban Interface, Gail Wells

Joint Fire Science Program Digests

The 2003 Healthy Forests Restoration Act calls for local communities in the wildland-urban interface to collaborate on developing Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs) to reduce their wildfire hazard. To craft a successful CWPP, a community must collaborate effectively. A Joint Fire Science Program-sponsored research team studied 15 communities as they developed CWPPs. They found that social networks, learning communities, and community capacity were key indicators of success, and that working together on a CWPP can enhance a community’s capacity to collaborate, helping it address future challenges more skillfully.

Office Of Scholarly Communications Annual Report Fy 2009, Paul Royster

Institutional Repository Information

FY 2009 was the 4th year of operations for the UNL Digital Commons, which again established new records for recruitment, participation, and usage.

During the year, the repository grew from being the 4th largest in the United States to the 2nd largest, overtaking MIT’s DSpace and Ohio State’s KnowledgeBank repositories. Nebraska now trails only Michigan’s Deep Blue in number of documents in a traditionally configured institutional repository.

8,393 new open access articles were deposited, an increase of 1,275 (18%) over the previous year. At June 30, 2009, the repository held 23,885 open-access documents, plus 10,965 ETDs in the ProQuest database, …

History, Generations, And China Stories, Robert A. Kapp

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In early May, a conference was held at Yale for retiring Chinese historian Jonathan Spence, with several China Beatniks in attendance. Here, Robert Kapp, one of Jonathan Spence’s first graduate students, reflects on the shifts in the stories we’ve told and heard about China during the time that Spence has been active in the field.

The retirement of a distinguished scholar and doctoral mentor sometimes goes insufficiently remarked, but in the case of Jonathan Spence’s recent retirement from the Yale History faculty, something better happened. Happily, several of Spence’s Ph.D. students decided to throw their efforts into a conference and …

Ageism In Academic Librarianship, Melanie Chu

E-JASL: Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship (1999-2009, Volumes 1-10)

Background

Nearly one out of every ten librarians is under the age of thirty. The average age of a graduate student in library and information science is 30-35 years old. Between 2010-2020, 45% of librarians will reach the retirement age of 65 years old. The relative age of the profession will continue to decrease as retirements increase. Statistically, the population of young librarians is a growing minority.

Young, new librarians face age discrimination, including disrespectful treatment in the workplace and unrealistic expectations of performance. Ageism in academic libraries results in job dissatisfaction and loss of retention for these new librarians. …

Overhauling Of A Science Library Web Area, Daniel S. Dotson

E-JASL: Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship (1999-2009, Volumes 1-10)

Abstract

This article covers the revamp of a science library’s web area. The library’s web area contained outdated web pages, unused files, and an architecture that made it hard to maintain. All of these issues with the web area resulted in an examination and revamping of several aspects of all the files on the web area. Server statistics were used to determine the usage of the files in the library’s web area. Files containing textual information were categorized according to their topic and the usage of each topic area was examined to determine the distribution of usage amongst the topic …

E-State Practices In Turkey: Evaluation Of Governmental Web Sites, Feryal Turan, Özlem Bayram

E-JASL: Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship (1999-2009, Volumes 1-10)

Introduction

The development of information technologies (IT) supports significant transformations in the conventional working mechanisms of the Turkish State and affiliated public institutions.

E-State is defined by World Bank as the reformulation of the relations between citizens, businesses and State authorities through use of information technologies (such as Wide Area Networks, Internet, and mobile communication) by public administrative units.

Whereas important steps have been taken in e-State practices within the framework of the infrastructure of the institutional and national information networks, Turkey is still at the starting point with regards to meeting the information and communication technology-based needs of its …

Embedding An Im [Instant Messaging] Widget In Research Databases: Helping Users At Their Point-Of-Need, Kwabena Sekyere

E-JASL: Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship (1999-2009, Volumes 1-10)

Introduction

The rapid growth of internet users has made libraries eager to introduce online services for this new community, in addition to their traditional reference services. Virtual reference service has become a convenient and easily accessible option for the online community, particularly with increasing amounts of libraries resources now available electronically as well (Lou, 2007).

Virtual reference began in many libraries as email reference service (Janes, 2002) with a move to live chat reference as technology advanced. These live reference services were offered through chat software developed in-house or by vendors. Due to the high cost of purchasing and maintaining …

Open House In The Ivory Tower: Public Programming At An Academic Library, Rochelle Smith, Ben Hunter

E-JASL: Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship (1999-2009, Volumes 1-10)

Abstract

Public programming, a frequently used outreach tool for public libraries, is far less common in academic libraries. This article examines the University of Idaho Library’s efforts to attract both university and community members with public programming, delving into detail for three specific grant-funded discussion series: one on Jewish literature, one on graphic novels, and one on jazz. Strategies for location selection, advertising, scheduling and funding are all discussed with commentary on what worked well, what didn’t, and how public programming fits into the mission of an academic library.

Using A Permanent Usability Team To Advance User-Centered Design In Libraries, Jane Nichols, Alison M. Bobal, Susan Mcevoy

E-JASL: Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship (1999-2009, Volumes 1-10)

Abstract

Usability, user studies, and evaluating user experiences have been a part of academic libraries for many years. In the last 20 years libraries have created ad hoc usability teams to do user studies. Oregon State University (OSU) Libraries started its ongoing team in 2006, resulting in an increased focus on user experience throughout the libraries. This article explores the team’s history from formation to work it took on. The merits and challenges usability teams bring to an organization are also discussed. To date the literature describes usability methods and shares findings from libraries’ usability studies but none discusses benefits …

If You Build It, They May Not Come: The Case Of Questionpoint, Lynette Ralph

E-JASL: Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship (1999-2009, Volumes 1-10)

Abstract

The Knowledge Base (KB) of QuestionPoint (QP) is a Knowledge Management (KM) tool capable of capturing the collective knowledge of reference librarians for future use. The goal of the study was to determine if this KB is an effective KM tool. Descriptive research was the methodology used and included an unobtrusive study, a survey instrument, and interviews. This study revealed that despite the technological capabilities of this KB, librarians who had access to the system failed to utilize it.

Notes And News- Summer 2009

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

DISSERTATION AWARD IN WOMEN'S HISTORY

CALL FOR PAPERS

CALL FOR PAPERS

CALL FOR PAPERS

VISITING SCHOLARS PROGRAM

Title And Contents- Summer 2009

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY

Volume 29/ Number 3 / Summer 2009

CONTENTS

CHANGING PERCEPTIONS OF HOMESTEADING AS A POLICY OF PUBLIC DOMAIN DISPOSAL

A PRAIRIE PARABLE: THE 1933 BATES TRAGEDY

CULTURAL SURVIVAL AND THE OMAHA WAY: SUMMER 2009 EUNICE WOODHULL STABLER'S LEGACY OF PRESERVATION ON THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY PLAINS

REVIEW ESSAY: THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF A MOVING OBJECT: EMERGING UNDERSTANDINGS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN METIS

BOOK REVIEWS

NOTES AND NEWS

Permanent Electronic Access To Government Information: A Study Of Federal, State, And Local Documents, Claudene Sproles, Angel Clemons

E-JASL: Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship (1999-2009, Volumes 1-10)

[First two paragraphs]

Even before the conception of electronic-only documents, providing permanent public access to government information was challenging. Since 1813, federal depository libraries have acquired and maintained tangible items to ensure continued access for the public. Fugitive documents, or government-produced information which escapes distribution through the Federal Depository Library System (FDLP), have always been a major concern. In our current environment, where the vast majority of government information is distributed electronic-only, this problem has only worsened. That, coupled with the ability to completely destroy electronic documents with the click of a mouse, has made the task of finding and …

Wpa News 83 (2009), World Pheasant Association

Galliformes Specialist Group and Affiliated Societies: Newsletters

WPA News (Summer 2009), number 83

Published by the World Pheasant Association